Station owner felt threatened, attorney says

By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item

June 19, 2008 08:08 am

— LEWISBURG — Sudhir Kumar, the Media man who admitted firing a gun at four adults and a baby, felt threatened by group members who uttered vulgar comments and refused repeated requests to leave his property, his attorney said Wednesday.
Kumar, 45, pleaded no contest in Union County Court on Tuesday to terroristic threats for firing a 9 mm pistol as group members changed the 7-month-old girl’s diaper near their car parked at the 24/7 Truck Stop Fuel Food Market on Route 15 in Allenwood on June 20, 2006.
Lewisburg defense attorney Stephen Becker said Kumar, who no longer owns the truck stop, felt threatened by the group that included adults Nolan Proctor, Tara Proctor and Michael Kimler, all from the Williamsport area, and Troy Matty, of Cogan Station.
“He’d asked them on three separate occasions to leave, and they were acting strange and menacing toward him,” Becker said.
Kumar at first approached them and asked them to stay away from a flower bed they had parked near because there were wires in the area.
He went back into the store and returned a short while later with a pen and paper and began to write down their license plate number, but one of the members of the group tried to conceal it.
When Kumar asked them for their address “so he could call police,” one of the men in the group responded with an obscene comment.
Kumar returned to the store and came out with a pistol, which he fired in their direction.
At the plea hearing, District Attorney D. Peter Johnson said Kumar fired the gun in an effort to get them off his property.
“He believes that he was justified,” the prosecutor said.
Kumar agreed. “I fired to get them to leave, in order to save my wife, family and property.
He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Louise O. Knight in mid-September.
He faces a $10,000 fine, a year of house arrest and 48 months of probation.
At sentencing, Kumar will be required to speak about the facts of the case and relinquish the handgun.
Becker served as co-counsel with Philadelphia attorney Bernard Siegel.